Music for the masses

Stay tuned to meet woman on a mission to make her voice heard as the opening of the Sage Gateshead looms ever closer, Matt McKenzie speaks to Katherine Zeserson, the woman in charge of taking music to the people.

Stay tuned to meet woman on a mission to make her voice heard as the opening of the Sage Gateshead looms ever closer, Matt McKenzie speaks to Katherine Zeserson, the woman in charge of taking music to the people.

There is something of the missionary about Katherine Zeserson. She's a New Yorker in England, spreading her belief in the power of music to the natives. That's us, by the way.

And it's done with a zeal that is both infectious and charming . . . and just might convert a few people yet.

With many bold new arts projects being accused of pandering to the chattering classes, here is a woman not interested in preaching to the converted.

She wants to harness the power of music and help it transform the region she long ago adopted as home.

It shouldn't be surprising given her own road to Damascus experience as an eight- year-old schoolgirl in the west of Ireland.

There, she met Sister Mary Attracta, a woman whose influence seems to resonate down the years.

"It's all because of her," Katherine remembers. "She believed that when you sang you had a direct line to God.

"She'd say, `You don't need those priests. We've got a direct line'. She was the most inspirational person I have ever met."

Katherine believes. She believes in music and its power to rejuvenate individuals and unite communities.

She is, I think, exactly the type of person we need at the helm of the good ship Sage as it sets sail this winter.

She is also passionate, and has a clear vision of what her job - and the centre itself - is all about, but first and foremost, she is a music lover.

Formerly known as Director of Community Music, her title has been tweaked to Director of Learning and Participation.

Her work, with colleague Andrew Scott, will form the unseen powerhouse that drives the Sage and its wider objectives.

Away from the high-profile concerts, the superstars and the sinfonias, the pair will take the centre out to communities across the North.

Katherine talks about "transforming the opportunity for a relationship with music for all the people in our region".

She adds: "Our job is looking at and understanding the barriers people have to that relationship. Barriers of finance, upbringing, experience."

Her team has set out a number of target areas, including working with early years kids, then schools, then further and higher education.

There is also a community programme, which includes the likes of Voice of the River's Edge - a two-year music and performance project for people in east Gateshead - and a vocal and instrumental learning scheme, plus a music in the workplace initiative.

The Sage also needs to build things such as a library and develop its army of teachers.

On meeting Katherine in her employer's temporary home in Gateshead Old Town Hall last week, it is immediately clear that a donkey's hind legs would have no chance in a talking competition.

Splendidly garrulous, it is entirely appropriate that she sees her role as a communicator, someone who gets people on board to work with the centre.

She said: "All of it is about talking to people about potential collaborations.

"It's been said before but we want to irrigate and not drain, try to energise the whole region."

It is interesting that Katherine keeps talking of the entire region.

The name might be The Sage Gateshead, but the community work spreads out much further. Projects are already underway across the region, from the remotest parts of Northumberland down to west Redcar, in Teesside.

Born on May Day, 1959, to a Jewish refugee father and an Irish mother living in New York, the family moved back to Ireland when she was eight.

Music was engrained into the fabric of family life throughout her upbringing in Sligo, on the west coast of the country.

After school in Devon and university in Exeter, she moved to London and became a community musician, using her skills as a singer, pianist and percussionist.

Moving to Tyneside with her partner in 1984, she fell in love with the place and had a son Joshua, now 18.

"I would never live anywhere else," she says. "People are so willing to hear new ideas up here, it's a very open and honest place."

All of which goes some way in explaining Katherine's passion for the region and music, two things that have become inextricable from each other.

"We have lost our sense of ownership of music in this society," she said.

"I don't think it's a Northern or even an English thing, I think it's a Northern European and American thing.

"It's to do with professionalism. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that musicians are paid. But you risk disenfranchising people who are not.

"We have lost so many structures that validate music in our lives, like singing and brass bands. But it doesn't take much to re-ignite people's desire to create."

The Cobweb Orchestra - now boasting more than 600 members - is something people have flocked to join.

As the name suggests, it gives the lapsed musicians among us the chance to "dust off the cobwebs" and rejuvenate their talent.

The Durham Folk Summer School has hit record figures this year and the CoMusica project reaches across the entire region.

"All music is right, there's no wrong music," Katherine said.

"You don't have to like it all, you don't have to play it all . . . we would suggest you respect it all.

"It's about the way people can join together through music. My team say they're like the RAC . . . people are so pleased to see you."

The Sage Gateshead as the fourth emergency service. Now there's something that would convert the unbelievers.

Factfile

Born: New York

EDUCATED: New York, the west of Ireland, Dartington Hall School in Devon, Exeter University.

FAVOURITE BOOK: Middlemarch by George Eliot.

FAVOURITE FILM: Queen Christina starring Greta Garbo.

FAVOURITE MUSIC: The Human Voice.

MOST INSPIRATIONAL PERSON: Sister Mary Attracta, who led the choir at my school in the west of Ireland.

DEAREST WISH: "That in the year 2020, you could canvass the North of England and you wouldn't find a musician who didn't say, `I am a teacher' and you wouldn't find a teacher who didn't say, `I'm a musician'."